The Bones Behind the Wall
by DazeWaiting
Summary: Alora Hayes was born in Shiganshina and lived the average life along with her father and her older brother. When the impossible happens and the walls protecting the city begin to crumble, Alora's life is about to be turned into a horrifying nightmare that only the strong can escape alive. - An OC story with character appearances/interactions
1. Life as I Knew it

"Hey! Don't let go!" The sound of my giggling, girlish laughter chimed as I leaped and threw my arms around my brother's neck. The young man spun around and then tried to lift and hoist me onto his back to carry me through the empty dirt street. Though I was ten, he was tall and strong and could carry me as if I weighed nothing more than an empty crate over his shoulders.

"I don't know… I think you are slipping…" My brother made a face and began to lean back exaggeratingly in an attempt to cause me to slide off. "It's just too much, I can't go on," He staggered comically forward and began to walk in an uneven line through the alleyways.

I laughed but only gripped harder to keep myself in place. His wild, curly golden-brown hair tickled my nose as I kept my head down to prevent losing balance. In the cast of the sunlight, his hair always looked like shining strands of gold- something that I was always envious of. The curly hair trait ran through my family, but unlike his, my hair was a dark chocolate brown just like my father's. I brushed some of it away with my free hand before regaining my position once more.

"Yeah right! I know you lift heavier items into carts at the docks!" I peered over his shoulder and gave him a pointed look that he could see. Instead of commenting, however, he mimicked my look and then reached a hand back to roughly ruffle my hair. He knew I always hated it when he did that! I pulled back with a mock-scowl and then punched him on the arm playfully to show that he had not gotten the best of me. Not yet.

My brother then flashed me that all-famous bright grin; the smile that everyone seemed to love about him. It was always hard to stay mad at him when he gave you that grin, and it made it easy to forget why you were angry or down in the first place. I, however, knew that his smile came out the most for me when we were together.

"Well, speaking of docks," He began as we rounded towards the busier paths of town. The dirt roads would become cobblestone from here, and then up ahead the crowds would begin to gather the closer we drew to the marketplace and the waterway. "It will be kind of hard to work with you sitting on my shoulders."

"You have to work? Today?!" My heart sank as I came to this realization. When my brother worked to load and unload supplies at the docks, he worked all throughout the day until late at night. It would be well past the moonrise before I would get to see him again, and I knew what that meant; I would be forced to find something to do for the rest of the day until my father returned from his job and cooked dinner. I didn't like the idea of once again milling around the streets or lying bored around the house until it was time to prepare the meals. I usually found myself staring at the sky and wishing the sun would go down sooner so that I could see him return home again.

"Why do you have to work…?" I whined to him in that high-pitched voice I knew he always missed hearing. He had once told me that a dog could probably hear me from the other side of Shiganshina with that sort of pitch.

"Not the whine," My brother ran a hand through his mess of a hair and sighed in a tone of mock-defeat. "Because we need money for food, and clothes, and someone's cookies that I somehow can't ever seem to find in the box... I really must stop buying empty boxes, I mean you'd think we should tell someone-"

"I didn't eat them all!" I argued with a scowling frown, "If anything you had like ten! I see you eat them when you come home! It wasn't me!" I slid off his shoulders and onto my feet on the ground, only to plant my shoes and cross my arms in a pointed look of offense. How dare he accuse me of eating the cookies?

"Oh? It must be that cat that is always hanging around then- whatever it is that you called him?" My brother stopped and turned with his hands in his pockets. A grin appeared on his face at my protesting look as his brown eyes met my hardened blue. He really could be an ass sometimes.

"His name is Orangefluff, and he only eats mice!" I stated matter-of-factly with a glare, before letting my arms fall to their sides again. I was forced to scoot aside as a man pushed by with a creaking old cart in the direction of the market, interrupting our childish debate.

My face changed back to one of neutrality as I let the comment go, "But what am I supposed to do when you are gone again? It's no fun waiting for you and dad to come home."

My brother looked thoughtful and shrugged, "Well... you could always- I don't know, make friends? You know, friends who are your own age for once," He raised an eyebrow. I knew where this talk was going. My brother and I had a close bond; it had been just him and me before he acquired a job. Dad had always been busy trying to support us all on his own ever since our mom passed. I was too young to remember much about her, but my brother always told me that she had been too sickly most of the time. It must have taken a toll on them to see her that way, I would have thought, but to my viewpoint, neither seemed as distraught after so many years had passed. My dad had grown quieter and more solemn, but he was now eating once more and keeping busy with his job. He had a family to work for still, after all.

Now with both my brother and my father working, I suddenly had no one to really talk to. I guess that was my fault for choosing to avoid kids my age like the plague. The ones around our house never seemed to get too chummy with me, though to be fair, I never made it easy on them either. It was so much easier to trust my brother, who I had known my whole life. I didn't have to worry about being awkward around him, or of not fitting in and being made fun of.

"No! You've seen some of the kids my age! You know how horrible they can be!" I exclaimed with a sudden shake of my head. My anxiety level was rising just at the thought of approaching a strange crowd. Was he really going to pressure me into doing this?

"Oh, come on, Al," My brother teased, using the nickname he always called me since I was little. He sank down onto one knee to more of my level, as if addressing a child, and then gave me the saddest, most feigned puppy-dog pout look I had ever imagined him concocting. His warm, brown eyes were serious. "Do it for me? Your brother?"

"Argh, stop!" I shoved him on the shoulder in an attempt to break his expression. He was good, and merely turned his head to face me with the same look. It wouldn't go away. "Urgh, fine! I'll try!" I turned away in a look of disgust. How dare he pull the pout on me! That was just not fair, and he knew it too.

My brother straightened up with a returned grin, "Great! Have fun, and I'll see you when the moon is up," He waved his hand in a quick goodbye as he turned towards the direction of the docks. The crowd parted with his arrival, though most too preoccupied with carrying baskets or chatting with their neighbors to cast a glance at the strong, young man with the light curly hair.

"Bye Caden!" I waved back to him slowly as I watched him leave, and for extra measure to hopefully embarrass him, I shouted as loud as I could, "Bye big bro, hugs and kisses!" The nearby market-goers now turned their heads and glanced from me to my brother to see what the commotion was about, but I merely turned dismissively away to the path that led to our home. "That will show him for using his dirty tricks on me," I thought out loud with a slight chuckle.

I paused on my trek back to my home to kick a few pebbles across the path. The tiny stones stirred up the dust into clouds that would then be carried by the breeze. The paths back to our home were not paved and neat like the paths near the marketplace. Here, weeds sprung up around the edges of the houses and cracked the dry earth of the walkways. It was a familiar sight to me though since I had grown up and played in them. I still remember sitting in the path as a young girl and trying to write my name in the dirt with a flat stone.

Up ahead was our house. It was small, old and built right up against our neighbors. There was nothing very notable about its appearance since most of our community's houses were built in the same style, but to me it was different and held more uniqueness than all of them. There were so many memories in that house, some revolving around the smallest crack in the wall or a scribbled pen mark in the doorway. I could recount all of them upon passing and often found myself doing so when I was especially bored out of my mind. Today, however, the inside of that house didn't seem as welcoming as it should with the absence of my family. I wanted to get out and go explore. Surely there had to be something exciting going on somewhere?

* * *

I rounded the street past my house and continued to stroll down the dusty alleyways. There was quite a bit of clutter here that was dumped by the inhabitants; broken carts, old crates, crumbling bricks… I skirted around the mess to avoid tripping. I had just taken a step over what appeared to be the end of a broken shovel when a loud rattling noise caused me to jump and glance around wildly. Out of the stack of crates came a furry orange creature with a tangled pelt and thick, mangled tail. Orangefluff; that cat followed me everywhere. More than likely he had been searching for food.

"Mowwrl" The beat-up cat let out a throaty meow as it gleamed up at me with its yellow eyes and swished its ratty tail. He wasn't an attractive creature to look at and had probably seen one too many fights as well as disease, but he was better company than nothing. I clicked my tongue at him in response as I usually did when he was around. He stared at me as if in contemplation, but seeing that I didn't have any food for him, lost interest and turned to lumber off down the alleyway. _Some company._

"Hey, get back here!" A boy's voice shouted from nearby in such a loud tone of anger that it caused me to stagger backwards. I spun around to pinpoint the voice, but the boy was not in the alleyway. The volume, however, told me that he must be close by, so I crept nervously to peer around the next intersection. There I could see three figures with their backs towards me: all boys that were taller and older than me. They started to run forward, chasing a smaller blonde-haired boy into the streets.

I shrunk back out of view, afraid. The boys I had heard of around here often meant trouble; they were rough and didn't mind picking a fight just for the fun of it. I had never actually come in contact with them, but nor did I want to. From the looks of it though they were already too preoccupied with their current target to turn around and find me in their wake. I felt immediately relieved at the idea, though that might have been a little cruel of me. A twinge of guilt pulled at my chest. Clearly that blonde boy had been in some trouble. Should I go after him? How was I supposed to fair against the three large boys?

I bit my lip and glanced around, wishing there was someone else who could go and help him. If my brother was here, he would have handled this situation easily and I wouldn't have had to worry about doing anything. I started inching out into the street as the weight of guilt started to get the best of me. At the very least, I could go get help, couldn't I? Making up my mind, I took a deep breath and sprinted after them. The group had a head start and I wasn't sure exactly where the boy had been running. One turn after another and I almost feared I had lost them down the winding streets and intersections, until I came to a quick halt by corner. Up ahead I could see that the boy had been cornered against the wall. The older boys were surrounding him.

"Hey, you-" I opened my mouth to shout out, but a sudden force cut me off. A strange hand flew in front of my face and forcefully pressed against my mouth. I panicked; someone had grabbed me from behind, I was being attacked! I instinctively flailed out, kicking my legs and sinking my teeth to bite the hand of my attacker. I heard a curse erupt from close behind my head and the attacker withdrew his hand, but then gripped my arm to yank me back as I began to charge off into the street.

"Look, do you _want_ to be killed?! I'm only saving you the trouble! No one messes with those guys, and if you know what's good for you, you will go back the way you came from," The arm released its firm grip on me just as I whipped around to see who the hell it was that had grabbed me. I didn't know what I had expected; perhaps some creepy middle aged man with awful hygiene, but instead I found myself staring at a lanky, fiery-red haired boy that was around my own age and only a few inches taller. He stumbled back from me with his hands held up in a gesture of surrender. His brown eyes were wide, as if he had been alarmed by my sudden reaction.

"I'm just saying, the last person that got in their way was beat to a pulp!" The boy's voice was grimmer this time as he cast an uneasy glance behind me where the three boys would more than likely still be standing. The lack of approaching footsteps had meant that they clearly hadn't heard the beginnings of my outburst. "Yeah, I'd hate to be that guy, but he doesn't do much to help his case. It's almost like he wants to provoke them sometimes," The kid shook his head and shoved his hands in his pockets.

"Who are you?! And what makes you think you can just sneak up behind me and grab me like that, you creep…?" I gasped, glaring at the strange boy. The rapid beating in my chest was just now starting to slow from the shock. _Calm down, clearly he was just being stupid! Who jumps out and grabs someone in an alleyway like that?_ I didn't want him to know that he had scared me though for my pride's sake, so I quickly followed it up with a sharp response; "Don't tell me what to do, either; I don't even know you! If you had seen the boy too, then why didn't you go get help or something?" I gestured at the blonde haired boy in the distance, who seemed to now be getting held up by one of the three older boys.

"Me? _Psht_ , none of your business who I am! Geez, I try to save you from getting the daylights beaten out of you, and this is what I get?" He ran a hand through his red-hair and rolled his eyes in annoyance. "Get help? Yeah right. No one around here helps anyone but themselves. Have you even been paying attention; good people don't win, that's the hard truth! Get used to it."

I opened my mouth indignantly to respond, but the boy merely had snorted and run off in the opposite direction just as suddenly as he had appeared. _Rude_ , I thought with narrowed eyes. I could have gone without having met that particular character.

The sound of a new set of clattering footsteps echoed through the alleys, and I turned my head to see two other kids spill out onto the street and race towards the blonde with a sense of urgency. I didn't get a close look at them, but one was a boy with brown hair, the other a dark-haired girl. _Friends of his_ , I thought, and decided it would be best to leave them to fend for his safety. _At least he won't have to be alone any longer,_ I convinced myself as I took one last glance and then slunk away. The strange red-haired boy's words were still running through my head. He had been wrong to think that no one would help, but did he really mean all of the other things he had said as well? If so, he must be living a miserable life indeed.

 _Forget about him, he's just some weirdo,_ I scolded myself as I decided on my next path to take. After the scare, I didn't feel safe wandering around the empty alleys any longer, and decided it would be best instead if I returned closer to home. The familiarity felt welcoming, especially as the corner of my house returned back into view. It amazed me how the earlier sight which had created boredom now caused me to feel so much safer and in control. This was my area, my home, and I knew it back and forth. I began to quicken my pace towards the door with an eager grin. So close to comfort. Just a few more feet

A piercing scream sounded in the distance. I froze in my tracks. The area had suddenly fallen into an eerie silence. A movement caught the corner of my eye. As my gaze drifted up, I expected to see the top of the wall, but what I saw instead stopped my heart in my chest and filled my limbs with heaviness. _No... It couldn't be..._

A massive, blood-red face was looming over the edge and staring down with a soulless, empty gaze.


	2. The Fall

The sunken eyes, the stripped flesh and massive scowl; I could feel myself rooted in place as I stared at them in horror. _This isn't real, this isn't real…_ I could hear the screams erupting around me in a deafening wave that rose in volume. The face disappeared, but a loud thundering crack echoed through the air as pieces of the wall began to fall. I couldn't see just what was happening from my vantage point, but I knew with a sinking horror that the wall stood no chance against the humongous monster. A titan had broken the wall- a titan bigger than the wall itself.

I sank back against the house as I struggled to breathe and my legs shook unsteadily. The world felt like it was spinning around me and I realized it was because I was panicking. The wall had broken, which meant the titan was coming inside. No, not just one titan; if the wall had been broken, who knew how many were going to come. The creature of her childhood nightmares that had only been recalled in scary stories were now only too real and there was no place to hide. Where was I going to go? Where did they escape?

 _Run._ A voice whispered in her head, then steadily grew louder. _Run! Run!_

Before I even knew what I was doing, my shoes were pounding across the paved streets. I don't even remember when I started running or for how long, but all around me things seemed to be warped and unreal. A wailing mother pushed past me, her face contorted with anguish and her hands held up high. A boulder smashed into a house only a street away with a ear-shattering crunch. Debris went flying and I was forced to duck behind an alleyway as the streets were showered with brick, splintering wood, roof tiles and broken support beams. I quickly ambled over a pile of beams and continued to run, only faintly aware of the choking cloud of dust that was now settling over the entire neighborhood. It covered everything in one thick blanket.

I coughed as the stinging dust fell over me and caught in my eyes and throat. I could hardly see anything and my gasping was telling me that it was getting difficult to breathe. I continued to run blindly, knowing my only hope would be to escape it. I staggered around broken walls and fell onto my knees as I lost my footing over the rubble. My legs were now scraped and bleeding and my hands were covered in a sudden warm stickiness. I lifted them up in a daze as I realized it was blood and that I was standing in a pool. Choking, I flew to my feet and scrambled back. There was a body nearby- only half of a torso that had somehow been torn apart. The corpse's head was facing towards me and plastered in blood, it's mouth open in a silent scream that remained frozen even in death. My heart hammered as I stared in horror at the mangled remains. I couldn't grasp what I was looking at, but then my breathing stopped as the ground started to erupt in violent tremors. I ducked down to keep myself steady from the shaking. I couldn't tell where it was coming from and the dust was clouding my eyesight, but soon the tremors stopped. For a heartbeat all was silent, then a giant face slowly loomed down into view; a face with an eerie, frozen grin.

 _Run._

The streets blurred past me once more. Screams of pain, fear, anguish and death were through the air in one unholy storm, but all I could hear was my own heart beating quickly. I was hardly aware of the scenes I was passing now as my only thought was on running. Nearby, a child was crying by a motionless body. A man was shouting profanities and challenges at the sky while outstretching his arms and throwing a broken bottle. An old woman had fallen at the end of the street, but all ran past her. No one would risk to help her get up.

I was heartless; I couldn't stop. My fear overcame any other need. Through my mind I could only think of one racing thought. A destination:

 _The waterway, the waterway…!_

I knew I had to make it to where my brother was. I had to get to Caden. As I focused on my goal, nothing else mattered.

The air was full of splintering shards once more as a titan smashed through a home. I realized with despair that I could hear them around with more frequency. A leg stomped its way into the middle of the street when a titan strolled out from an intersection. I ducked around the lumbering monster as it smashed his fist into a shop. The chorus of new screams trailed away as I fled. They wouldn't last long.

The roads- I had been running so blindly that I had lost my direction. Dodging debris and rerouting around blocked paths full of wreckage and titans slowed me down and had thrown me off course. I had to stop in a crumbling archway to regain my breath as the streets started blackening and spinning around me. My heart was beating louder than my own screaming mind and my lungs burned as if they were about to burst in my chest. My limbs were shaking; I wanted to slump down there and now and merely hide, but hiding hadn't helped the family in the shop. My body begged me to stop anyway and to just give up, but I could imagine my brother's voice telling me to find him. He would be looking for me; I had to find him first.

It was then that I realized that through the ruin, I recognized this path. It was a street I had taken when my brother and I had taken a walk from his work to the market one summer. I was almost there; the waterway would only be up the road and to the right. With newfound direction, I staggered to my feet once more and forced myself forward with all the will I could muster. The street was covered in red and it blurred around me. At first I thought it was my faltering vision from overexertion, but after skirting around several motionless bundles I soon realized what it really was.

Blood, the streets were paved with blood, and the heaps I was passing were the countless bodies of the titans' victims.

I felt myself reeling with sickness. My shoes were slipping under the wet, red stones. I was so disoriented that I hardly realized I was running right into an unexpected crowd. Everywhere people were shouting, screaming, crying, but all were running in one direction, and that was the entrance to the docks. The entrance where I knew my brother would be.

"Out of the way!" A man shoved me roughly aside as I entered the teeming crowd. I fell back against a woman, whose ghostly face showed no reaction as she watched me with dead eyes. I staggered back and more fleeing people pushed me forward. I was getting bruised and hit left and right as people crowded in a panic. I soon felt like I was suffocating and I feared the crowd would trample me. Already there were some victims being stepped on at their feet, and I had fallen to my knees.

"Alora!"

Two strong hands grabbed me from behind and I was suddenly hoisted up onto my feet and into the air. I flailed and whipped my head around to meet the face of my brother; Caden, though I hardly recognized him at first. His handsome face was cut and bleeding along his jaw and forehead and a dark circle of a bruise ringed around his left eye. His gaze that was usually so light and friendly was now dark and grim unlike that I had ever seen before.

"I found you, thank god-" He gripped me so firmly that I thought I might bruise. I could hear the relief in his voice as he spoke, though his eyes shifted constantly on the alert. "Alora, hang on. We don't have time." I opened my mouth to protest, but soon he was barreling through the crowd with me in his arms. I had never seen him be so rough with others before as he now pushed them carelessly aside. I knew that if he didn't we would never get past the crowd safely. I watched in fear as the faces of the crowd parted around us and various voices and pleas passed by. I wasn't sure where we were going or what we were doing, but I trusted my brother and I felt safe being carried in his arms. Soon, however, the crowd had come to a halt. I realized it was the edge of the waterway, and before us was a large ship. Already it was packed with people who had boarded and held little remaining room for passengers. Men and women were shouting for eachother on each side; some for families on the boat, and others for loved ones who were left on the deck.

"A ship! Will it save us?" I blurted out quickly. If a ship could take them both away to safety from the titans, then they should board it right away. Still, the crowd made it difficult to do so, and I wondered just how many, if any, could possibly fit if we waited. "Caden, we have to go now!"

"Alright," My brother shoved through the remaining crowd, which was not an easy feat. One wrong move and people would fall into the waterway below. Some were already careening towards the edge in a dangerous way. Caden grasped me tightly as he rushed to the boardwalk. Two men were pulling the bridge back, removing it from the access of the docks.

"You must stay back everyone! We cannot fit all of you on board, I'm sorry. Stay back!" One of them men shouted in a loud voice over the roar of voices.

"No!" I shouted in anguish as I realized what they were doing. They had removed the boardwalk, and now her and her brother could not get on. "We have to go! Caden! What are we going to do? We have to jump!" I turned my head in desperation to face him. We could jump, we could make it if we just tried, I was sure of it! My brother's face, however, was suddenly stone. His eyes seemed to have darkened as he stared at the ship. For one long moment, he looked back at me in pain. I had never seen him look that way before and it tore in my chest. "Caden…?" I asked him with a teary blink, hoping he would answer. I couldn't figure out why he wasn't trying to get us on or to jump after all his motivation. We had gotten so far after all, and the ship was right there. It took me a moment to realize that even if he did jump, the board wasn't going to support us both when it wasn't fully across. We would have fallen into the deep trench below.

The two men finished pulling the plank to the boardwalk away and I was still staring face to face with my brother. He looked past me to the ship, and his masked expression flickered to that of a slight smile, though a sad one with his eyes. "No, you have to go," He said as he ruffled my dark curls. I stared at him in confusion and speechless, but before I could even comprehend what he was doing he had taken me to the edge. I was being held up above the water, and with all of his strength; he suddenly tossed me into the air. My heart panicked wildly as I began falling, but soon, multiple pair of hands grabbed my arms and pulled me over the edge of the boat. I staggered to my feet in a daze and peered over the railing. There my brother was standing on the dock, motionless.

"Caden!" I screamed his name as the crew began shouting orders. The boat began to shake and then move. No, no no, my brother was over there. My brother was going to be left behind. "Caden!" I screamed once more, but he nearly held up his hand as if to wave. Tears were streaming down my face. The passengers jostled roughly beside me, but no one was stopping the boat or heeding me any attention. Through the crowd I could barely hear his yell;

"Make it worth something, ok?"

I caught one last glimpse of his light hair and half-hearted smile before the boat rushed down the waterway and into the tunnel that would be their escape.


	3. Lost

I could hear them all around me; the screams of every person I had passed. I was running but my legs weren't taking me anywhere. I could hear the screams of the family that had been ripped from their home by the giant hand as I slipped over their pools of blood. At the end of the path was my brother. He waved to me with the bright smile he was known for; oblivious to his surroundings. "Caden!" I called out to him as I tried to run toward him, "Caden!" My running wasn't taking me closer and the distance only seemed to grow. I reached out my hand to him, but a massive face suddenly appeared behind him. I screamed in horror as a titan devoured my brother before my very eyes.

I woke up on the street with my head buried into my arms and my knees pulled up against me. My sobs were choked and muffled through my sleeves and my dirty face was streaked with tears. Even if my cries had been loud, I knew they would be ignored. I had to come back to my surroundings and realize exactly where I was. This town was in Wall Rose and was where all of the survivors and refugees from the Titan attack had been gathered. The term "gathered" actually meant "dumped and left to survive", as I had soon learned. We had been here for three days. With no work, no place to stay and nothing to eat, hundreds of people now sat in the streets. A crowd of adults were shouting at the Military Police with a fierce persistence, begging them for help and shelter they were unable to provide. Two grown men were wrestling over a blanket by a dumpster. The larger of the two snapped the other's neck and ran to leave the body in the street. A middle-aged man was roaming the corner with a glassy gaze as he chanted to himself and suddenly screamed about phantom hands reaching from the sky. No one looked towards him as all knew that he was just one of the few who had lost his mind.

As for me and the other children, we stuck to the shadows and hid. Our faces were expressionless and our gazes empty with the horrors we had witnessed and the loved ones we lost. There were many of us lined up along the walls of this darkened alleyway; staring off into space, sobbing or curled up limp against the corners. None of us spoke to one another. No one acknowledged a passerby or even looked up from their imaginary point of focus. Our souls were empty. The youth we had in us had been ripped away and left with walking husks in its place. We moved, but we were no longer alive.

I turned to examine the children who were around me more closely. We ranged in age from twelve to as young as two; the youngest was a small girl huddled up against her six year old brother. I whipped my head away with new tears forming in my eyes at the realization. A girl and her older brother, that was how it should have been. Though they were alone, at least they had managed to survive together. It was more than I had now.

I felt a dark emptiness having settled over me as I rocked slightly back and forth on my knees. I was alone; I had no one and had lost everything. My brother was dead and my father hadn't been on the ship. I had looked for him everywhere the second we had arrived in Wall Rose, but he hadn't been among the passengers. Even if they had somehow managed to survive the titans for a day, they wouldn't be alive for long. They were trapped in the walls with thousands of titans all around them who could scent humans and would stop at nothing until each person was devoured.

I jumped up and ran to retch in a nearby bucket; reimagining my brother being eaten over and over again and his blood pouring out into the streets. My legs shook weakly as I sank back down against the wall. The flashes of him wouldn't leave my mind and I was afraid to close my eyes for fear that they would worsen.

"Quickly! Hurry!" Three teenage boys with scruffy hair were shoving their way through a forming crowd in the clearing. More and more adults were filing in like haggard zombies with their clothes torn and hands raised. Somewhere among the noise I could hear a bell ringing and the shouts of commanding military police officers. They were handing out food, but I felt no will to get up and join the masses in waiting.

"Are you cutting me?" A gaunt-looking man yanked the collar of the thin-framed dark-haired man in front of him. His face was turned back into an expression of anger and disgust. "Get behind me, I was here first you pig!"

"Say that to me again!" The dark haired man launched himself in a frenzy of punches. The accuser fought back until both were tussling on the ground like feral animals. I had witnessed this scene nearly a dozen times since arriving and even now it barely regarded alarm.

"Get up you rats or you will be lucky to reach your next meal!" A uniformed officer stood over them with the barrel of his gun pointed first at the chest of one, then the other. I looked away and my attention drifted as the conflict continued. What was the point of all this? What was the point of anything anymore? I buried my head back into my arms and continued to fight my visions of horror and despair, drowning out all other noise. I didn't feel I could take any more of the pain and darkness that was now choking me and threatening to take me under.

As my fingers gripped through my hair, I suddenly felt a hand tap my shoulder. I slowly peered up through a curtain of my messy dark curls. Next to me there stood a boy with an outstretched hand, handing me a piece of bread. His clothes were torn and caked with dirt and his face was streaked with mud as well, but the one thing that stood out about him was his fiery hair that stuck out in all directions. I blinked in confusion as I realized the boy was the same one I had met a few days before, though now much dirtier in appearance. His face was grim and less alarmed than when I had encountered him in Shiganshina. When I didn't respond immediately to his presence, he offered the bread once again, pushing it further towards my reach.

"Take it. You have to eat something, or are you just going to starve?" The boy questioned. I looked at him for a moment and then looked away in a sudden emptiness. I was not hungry and could not ever imagine being hungry again, nor did I feel like talking to another person. The boy furrowed his brow in response and then spoke again. His tone became more of a demand than a request, "Take it already!" I scrambled suddenly as he tossed the bread roughly down at me. I was forced to catch the small loaf as it rolled off my head and scattered crumbs everywhere.

"What do you want from me?! Leave me alone!" I faced him with a sudden snap, though unlike my tone, my expression clearly shown that of hurt, grief and pain. I had been through enough, why did he have to choose to bother me once more? Out of anyone that could have possibly survived, why did it have to be him that I recognized? It could've been so many other people...

"Is that what you really want, though?" The boy's brown eyes were masked with seriousness as he met my pained blue ones. A lump caught in my throat as I found myself staring at them, reminding me of my brother. They weren't as light nor were they glittering with humor, but I found myself wishing for Caden all the same. It felt like a half of me had been ripped a part; I wasn't the same without my brother. The strange boy continued to speak; " _Leave me alone, leave me alone_ ," he repeated in my tone with a sigh, both from this time and from when he had snuck up on me a few days ago. "Well, like it or not, you _are_ going to be alone now. Your home is gone, there is no place for us here. I'm guessing you lost your family too," He tilted his head to one side but didn't seem all too sympathetic. It was more like he was merely stating facts.

I said nothing as I continued to look away with the bread in my hand. I focused my gaze on a single ant that was crawling through a crack in the wall. It scurried off across the wall, with no other ants behind it. That was me: I had escaped through the wall, but now there was no one to follow me. Was it even better out here than it was inside with the titans?

The boy seemed to take no notice of my silence and continued on as though I had been listening. "Well, you can either live alone for the rest of your life here on this street- assuming you don't die of starvation first- or you can come with me and survive," He took a second loaf of bread out of his jacket pocket and began to munch on it casually. For one who had been through the same situation as I had, he didn't seem as bothered. In fact, I wouldn't say he had phased much at all.

Dwelling on this thought, I looked around the street once more at the children who were gathered and curled up against the same wall I leaned against. They were like lifeless dolls, and I was suddenly struck by how helpless they- no, we- all looked. They were waiting; waiting for help, waiting for food, waiting for a solution, or possibly waiting for their parents to come back. I realized with a shock that no one was going to help them. No one was going to help me. I had my brother, but without him, what adult was going to take care of me or even notice me? The ones in the crowd were fighting each other over every little possession, too self-absorbed to care about the children who were waiting here in the alleyway. They were worried about themselves. The children would all wait, but for what? Would they die here waiting for help that would never come?

I suddenly remembered what the same boy had told me days ago. It didn't make sense to me then, but it began to echo through my head just now: _"No one around here helps anyone but themselves. Have you even been paying attention; good people don't win, that's the hard truth! Get used to it."_

I felt my heart sinking as I made a dark realization. He had been right; the good people hadn't won... My brother had died while allowing me to escape. No one here was going to risk their survival by giving up their food or possessions to another person, not even a child. These children would die because all of the good people were already dead. The survivors of Maria had won by thinking of themselves and putting their own safety first. No one had helped that old woman when she had fallen in the midst of the titans. If they had they would have more than likely been consumed.

 _Even me..._

My heart suddenly wrenched with a mixture of guilt and horror. The faces, the screams; I hadn't helped any of the victims that I had passed by and instead had selfishly focused on my own life and of getting back to my brother. I had run, and I had never stopped. Not for the old woman, not for the child, not for anyone. I had run for my own life. I had let them die without even trying help. I hadn't been the hero, but yet I had fought hard to reach my brother. He had saved me, with the hopes that I would live instead.

 _"Make it worth something…"_

I tried not to cry once more as I pictured the last time I saw his face. Even though he knew he was going to die, he had smiled somewhat, because he had saved me. I couldn't let him down.

Slowly I rose to my feet with the bread gripped in my hand. I turned to look at the red-haired boy, who was waiting ever-so-patiently while eating his loaf. He looked up only slightly curious as he pulled a burnt piece from the end and tossed it onto the ground.

"Ok. I'll come with you..." I answered him finally as my weary blue eyes clouded with my resolve.


	4. Welcome Home

I followed the taller red-haired boy as he navigated his way through the streets with a new sense of purpose. The crowd of refugees were now becoming more distant and I could no longer hear anguished sobs or heated shouts. The sun had begun to set and soon it would be getting dark; already the buildings we passed were falling silent and homeowners were blowing out their candles. I watched as my guide halted at a small shop with darkened windows. It had clearly been closed for the night and I couldn't hear any sign of people inside.

"Why are we-?" I began to ask, but was suddenly hushed by the boy, who turned and held a finger to his mouth. He started to creep towards an alleyway that ran between the shop and the next building, and then waved his hand in a quick gesture for me to follow him. Too worn and emotionally exhausted to question him, I merely slipped behind. He had begun taking a stack of crates and lining them up against the wall of the shop, making what appeared to be a rough stairway. Before I could question further, the boy stepped over and climbed on each one until he reached a shuttered window by the roof of the shop. There, he opened the shutters and climbed inside.

"Come on!" He called to me in a whisper. I looked around to see if anyone was watching us. Something told me that this was going to get us into trouble if the Military Police were nearby. Seeing no one, I took a deep breath and followed, carefully holding my balance on the creaking crates. The boy reached over and grabbed my arms to help pull me up inside.

"See? Isn't this great?" He grinned with pride as I stood and looked around at the room. It seemed to be an abandoned floor of the shop, possibly once used as an attic or for storage. Now the entrance to the downstairs had been boarded up and old crates lay gathering dust in corners. To one side, the crates had been clearly disturbed and lined up in a wall with a blanket beside them. I realized then that this had been where the strange boy had been sleeping for the last couple of days.

"How did you find this place?" I asked him. In the little time we were here, he had somehow managed to find a place to stay, which was more than any of the survivors could have hoped for. "Do they know you are staying here?" I quickly pointed to the floor, indicating to the shop below. The upstairs may have been closed, but the shop had appeared to be decent enough to still be in business.

"I find places like this all the time. It's easy when you know where to look," the boy answered with confidence. "Here," he tossed me a blanket from inside one of the crates. It was old, frayed, and had holes from where moths had chewed through, but it was a blanket all the same. "As for the shopkeepers, don't worry about them. They are elderly and they hardly notice anything while they are here in the day. No one has come up here for years by the looks of it. As long as no one sees us, then this place can be our home. It even has a roof that's in pretty good shape!" He gestured toward the ceiling. I followed his point, and realized that he was right. While there were small holes in the roof here and there, it was still mostly in tact; at the very least, it did not look as if it were about to fall on top of us. Still, looking around the room made me long for the safe and clean home I had left back in Shiganshina. Back there, there was a blanket without holes and a roof that kept out the cold and wind completely.

I cursed myself as I had to force the wistful image out of my mind; my home didn't exist anymore. I was lucky to get a place more sheltered than the open alleyway I had been leaning against the past two nights. Suppressing my complaints, I crawled over to the other side of the room and pushed aside a few of the crates to make a space for where I would sleep. The floor was made of wooden boards that were cold and uncomfortable, so I tried to lay my blanket down first before settling into it. It didn't help as much as I had hoped.

The red-haired boy nodded in approval as he watched me get settled in, and then lay down in his own bed and stared up at the ceiling. For a moment we both simply lay on opposite sides of the room, dwelling on all the events that had happened in a short amount of time. Though he didn't say it, I could imagine that he probably wished he was at home as well.

"What's your name?" I asked suddenly, breaking the silence. It was up to this point that I realized I had never really known his name. If we were going to be surviving here, then I guess I'd have to address him by something aside from "red-haired boy".

"Huh?" He looked up in a blink, startled by my sudden question, but then slowly lay back down and resumed staring at the ceiling. He seemed to be hesitating, thinking for a bit, before replying. "You can call me Jarin. What about you?"

"Alora Hayes," I answered. I wondered why he had waited so long to answer, but I didn't feel like pressing him any further. I didn't care what he called himself as long as I had something to refer to him by. I attempted to smooth out the ratty blanket he had found for me. I tugged at a loose thread that hung by one of the holes and watched as it started to unravel. Afraid to ruin it any further, I rolled the blanket aside. "So, did you lose someone too…?" I found myself asking very quietly, knowing that I probably shouldn't bring up the subject, but not being able to stop myself.

"No," To my surprise, Jarin didn't seem upset or even slightly phased by the question. He stretched out his arms and leaned one hand to rest against his nearby crate. "Unlike most people, I didn't have anyone to lose. That's how I'm lucky, really..." He sat up and then looked at me in a sudden seriousness. "It's going to be ok you know; it's not as hard as you think to live on your own. You don't need the ones you lost and you can forget about them soon. We can still get money and food, and here we'll have better shelter than any of the others."

"How do you know?" I asked bitterly, the hurt evident in my tone. His self-assuredness had become grating the instant he had mentioned he had never lost anyone. How could he think that I could just forget my brother so easily? How did he know that I didn't need him?

"Because, I've been living alone since I was six years old." His brown eyes shone grimly from across the room, and I realized then that he wasn't lying. He had been living on his own for that long? How was that even possible?

"I know everything about surviving. You'll see. Tomorrow I'll teach you the tricks I've learned on how to get by. Then, you won't even need me to help you."


End file.
